Who I am: Elizabeth, wohm to 2 girls and expecting #3 in June. DH was un/under employed for 18 months. He started a new job the first week of October but we've yet to see a paycheck and things are getting bad ... really bad.

Where I'm going: We owe a lot on medical bills from my dh's surgery last year, plus we're defaulting on a credit card, but what I'm currently freaking out about is the notice of intent to foreclose that we got in the mail this weekend. We owe October & November, and would have been able to pay them if dh had gotten his paycheck on Oct. 29. But he didn't. So now my sole focus is to figure out how to pay 2 months of mortgage by November 30th.

How I'm going to get there: I've run all the #'s, and we can JUST squeak by if we don't spend a dime on anything extra through mid-December. We have a well-stocked pantry and chickens for eggs & meat (we have some roosters we needed to cull anyway). But it is imperative that we don't spend a dime outside of essential bills (electricity, daycare, phone that dh needs for his 2nd job, internet that is under contract). I'm worried about dh's lunches, and I don't know where the money for gas is going to come from to get us back & forth to work, but I guess we'll figure it out. I'll be baking like a crazy woman the next several weeks, and we're going to be eating a LOT of beans. Did I mention that I'm really, really scared?

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2. , $177 groceries, $65 toiletries
3. , $50 cat food
4. ... getting an insurance-covered massage today! woohoo!
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6. $688 on winter tires!! . we did obviously budget it, but it was still a shock to the system. now i REALLY have to stick to our budget this month, since that ate up pretty much any wiggle-room we normally have
7. slightly unnecessary grocery spend of $5 for dessert
8. $20 on a weekly yoga pass
9. plus, set up my desk, unpacked my art supplies, and did some sketching WOOHOO!
10. yesterday was a tough one. my dd needed some new winter clothes, but i went shopping with a friend. bad idea, mixing shopping with socializing... spent $56 on clothing, $15 on assorted snacks, parking and other little things. i may return the one full price item i bought... an adorable sweater dress. not the most sensible purchase for a crawler .
11. $58 on groceries, $20 on boots for dd and a new pack of pacifiers.
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13. . $30 for dinner with friends
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Oh my... MDC was down for a few days, and I kind of fell off the wagon... I had a few meals that I pretty much HAD to eat out, and that kind of threw a wrench into things. I am doing really well on keeping to my grocery budget and cooking on my days off so I have leftovers during the week. Working 2nd shift makes it difficult to cook on the days I work; I prefer to spend my mornings playing with DS rather than cooking. Today I made a big pot of ham and bean soup, though, so it should last for several days.

1- mortgage payment, $32 for pizza to thank our niece and nephew for help with yardwork (comes out of entertainment allowance)
2- $74.48 at Meijer for groceries (and only groceries, yay!) + $11 for apples at the market to make applesauce
3- $45 for eye doctor, $15 for the prescription, and $5 for coffee
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5- $6.50 for Chinese for lunch + $24.29 at Meijer + paid for car repairs
6- $12 for lunch, $8 for dinner + $3.80 for coffee
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8- electric bill + paid off credit card (never carry a balance, but "launder" money through it to get freebies)
9- student loan payment + $3 for potatoes at market + $6.50 for Chinese for lunch
10- paid phone bill + $79.99 for groceries
11- $17.70 at Barnes and Noble for a book and coffee for DH and me + $21.35 at Dick's Sporting Goods for gloves for work + $55 at Carabbas for dinner and dessert (budgeted, but more expensive than I'd have liked!!)
12- $12-ish for dinner at Culver's for niece and I

Thanks, Prudence. I'm feeling a little better after talking with dh last night (he was out of town all weekend). I have no illusions ... this month is going to be HARD. But with planning & discipline we can do it.

Must stop going to the store. We certainly have enough food in the house!. I am vowing to do NO more food shopping for the next 8 days, until 11/23.

And got some bad news....big car repair needed on our 2003 Subaru. To the tune of over $1600! The good news is that part of it might be covered by Subaru (common problem for that year's model, apparently.) I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one.

Ha! Guess I should have figured out some sort of cool smiley key before I started this. D'oh. So the only thing we're allowed to spend money on this month, besides the bills I listed, is gas for vehicles. We live relatively far away from our respective jobs, and dh's 2nd job is delivering pizzas, so I'm interested to see just how much money it's going to take for 2 weeks of fill-ups. I'm cheating a little, though. I have a ton of vacation saved up and I plan to take as much as I can this month and still actually get my work done, so that I reduce the overall amount I'm driving.

Elizabeth -- I'm thinking of you and that two mortgage payments in one month thing. Good luck!!! Did the check you were expecting Oct 29th come in?

I made some pretty aggressive payments this month too -- pre-paid our village taxes, an extra mortgage payment that we didn't expect (we just refinanced and thought we were getting TWO months with no payment, but not so -- money is tight tight tight for the next two weeks. I did it on purpose as a challenge to myself. If I prepay this stuff, and there is no money in the bank, I'm less tempted to spend it.

So today should be a good no-spend. I have to amend yesterday though because after I posted I bought fleece PJs at Costco. Didn't really need those, but man are they cozy.

15. $55 to sign DD up for art "class" through parks & rec for next term

16. Should be a technical "no spend" day, but I also transferred $1000 out of savings today to cover the $3600 cheque I'm going to have to write tomorrow for our new front porch. I was really hoping to not have to move stuff out of savings, but I had forgotten about another bill that we had to pay this month and about the annual furnace maintenance, DD is suddenly in need of new shoes, and - honestly - I haven't been as good as I wanted to be about keeping my spending down.

It was a rainy day today and dh had a broken windshield wiper blade. I'm estimating how much that'll cost. He did get his check yesterday, thank the Gods. It was a couple of dollars more than I was estimating, so that's good. I'm hoping that he'll make enough in tips tonight to pay for the wiper blade and put gas in his truck.

As for me, I carpooled to a meeting (300 miles round trip), so saved over a tank of gas -- woohoo! I packed a drink & snack & lunch was provided, but on the way home I found $34 in my wallet (I NEVER carry cash!) and bought a soda. I'll use the rest of the money to put gas in my car and buy some supplies for dd#1's class that I committed to donate this week (before I knew all personal financial heck was about to break loose). I took an online peak at my paycheck (won't get it until Friday) and it's about $20 more than I was estimating. Yay!

DH reminded me that we need some bedding for the chicken pen. I'm going to see if I can grab some shredded paper from work to get us through the month. Otherwise tomorrow I'll be spending $5 on a bale of wood shavings that will last us 2-3 months.

I understand what a hard time you and your husband must be going through. I just wanted to put a little shout out to let you know that in our area there is something call EFA (emergency family assistance) that can help pay rent for 1-2 months when you are in need for just a little bit of time. If you do not have the money yet and are getting even more scared, I highly suggest seeing if there is something like this in your area or calling social services and asking if there is something like this.

Good luck - sending good vibes and prayers your way

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Edited to Add: Just saw that your husband got his check in your more recent post. Glad to hear that. A note on wiper blades - could you use the good wiper blade in front of the driver's seat and put the less efficient one/none in the passenger spot? (Haha, can you tell we've done this before??) That way he could see when he is driving and you might not need to buy a new one just yet.

ysm, that was a GREAT suggestion! Unfortunately I didn't see it until after he'd already bought 2 new blades. Thankfully they were only $5 a piece and he had cash to buy them (yay, tip $). RE assistance, if I thought we'd qualify for any I wouldn't hesitate to apply, but we (I) make too much money. It's embarassing to me that we're even in this situation ... I have a great job and even with my dh's long-term unemployment we should have been ok. But I let him talk me into overextending ourselves and now we're paying the price. A good thing that I hope will come from this is that he seems to have finally woken up and seen that I wasn't just being "Debbie Downer" and trying to suck all the fun out of everything. Financial restraint is a Good Thing. I have hope that working through this crisis together will strengthen our marriage.